The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1887-09-01
ROOTS. HERBS AND BITTERS.
WHY STATESVILLE PEOPLE DO
NOT SUFFER WITH SNAKE BITES.
Every Town Has It's Peculiar Business
and Attraction--StateSvil Big Men.
Big Herbs, Big Drinks. Big Crops, Il c.
IEdifncial (Nnrrocr,ondarno
rial correspondence.

C1A ESN Lille, N. ", Aug. 10. 1SSI.-
While there is a sameness about the bust
ness of the average North Carolina town
that a traveller finds monOtOnous, there is,
at the same time, in nearly every town
some enterprise so different from that in
any other, that each place has something
peculiar to itself The man who is selling
shoes, and has no eye for anything except
shoes and no words for anybody except
shoe dealers, will travel through the State
and fail to observe what this special enter
prise or industry is, that, so to speak, differ
entiates it from other places of like size.
Let me illustrate: When visit Durham l
never think of the quantity OF cotton
bought there yearly, although Durham is
q good cotton market. Smoking tobacco
is so big an interest there that all other
enterprises and branches of business are
dwarfed in comparison and forgotten. In
Winston, it is chewing tobacco; in Rock
ingham, it is the manufacture of cotton
goods; in Ashevile, it is live Yankees with
pockets full of money with which to buy
costly dirt: in Waynesyile, it is the White
=
melons, &C., Nc. In all these specialties,
there are rivals and these towns are promi-
nent because they excel in what is the pc
cullar enterprise or industry of the place.
What has Statesville as its pecularity:
What makes it different, in business
point of view, from other towns: 1t han
dies much cotton and grain. 1t has
large tobacco trade. But Wilson and
Monroe surpaSs it in It's cotton business,
and Durham and Winston leave it far be
hind in It's tobacco trade. While States
vile merchants and dealers pay good prices
for both Of these staples, nobody ever
hears about Statesyille as THE cotton town,
or THE tobacco market. What is it, then,
that makes it peculiar town!
1t is its root and herb business Here
is the largest herbarium in the world be-
longing to MeSsrs Wallace Bros. These
gentlemen handle great variety Of roots
and herbs Nearly all the patent medicine
men of the country are their customers
and they do a large export business. Mr..
L. Pinkus is also an extensive dealer in
the same line.
The doctors always advise against the
use of patent medicines. and usually fol-
low their advice and shun them. But,
now that know that the ingredients of
many of these nOstrums come from North
Carolina | am inclined henceforth not to
regard the advice of the doctors. Am |
not a North Carolinan DO | not advo-
cate standing by home products: and pat
ronizing home institutions! Are these
roots any the less products of North Caro-
lima because they have been taken north
and conver. ed into all sorts of mixtures,
pills. extracts &c, &c Ought not, there
fore, a patriotic North Carolinian TO swal-
low all the patent medicines his purse will
buy in order to encourage home Industry
l ask the question; the readers Of the
I CHRONICLE may answer it as their livers
and patriotism dictate.
Next to the big herb and root business,
4 as a speciality, Statesville is noted for its
/ wholesale liquor establishments. | suppose
it is the biggest whiskev distribution point
| in the State. | noticed wholesale whis-
4 KEY establishment (my friend Rev. Or.
! Robey would call it a place where men
sell the rectified essence of damnation) }
near the herbarium. | don't know that it
ever happens in Statesville (but thought
/ that it might happen very often and not
! be Seven WOnderD that a man stumps
his toe. or thinks he is snake bitten, and
picking up a root from the helbarium
rusheS into a wet grocery, hastily drops
it into a quart of ''the old critter," drinks
it down, and although the root had not
dissolved at ALL swears the balance of his
! life that the root treatment cannot be
equalled Snake bites cannot kill many
| good citizens while so many remedies to
kill the poison are at hand and so accessi-
| BILE The truth is, come to think Gf it,
never heard of man in Statesville dying
of snake-bite in all my life. Now suppose
these remedies were not at hand sup
pose-but hold, the thought of the agonies
of such death stills my pen
Speaking Of whiskey puts me in mind to
say that il is my deliberate conviction that
| IL tlet6 Is us I1ucn QcCftdsc III QIluklHS
each year in North Carolina for the neat
twenty wears, as there has been the last
five wears, there will be little need to re-
strict its sale Here in Statesville men
have made and are making money selling
| Whiskey. But the big fortunes made IL
| the business in most sections of North
Carolina are at an end. The liquor busi;
ness doesn't pay, as it once did. ] know
a man in a certain !. . G. town who, begin
ming the business with small jug of whis
kew and one string fiddle in a cellar jus
after the war, has made a fortune out OF
selling s'sho1ts" Two or three years ago
to the surprise of all his friends, he sole
out young man, who had occasionally
sought to drown his sorrows in the flow
ing bowl at Mr.. X's q will call him X) wa!
anxious to know what prompted the dealer
to quit his old occupation. He said: "Mr
x will you tell me why you sold you
business?" "Wall, to tell you the trutf
Jlm." (his name wasn't Jim, but I'll cal
him that for short) 'I've a family now ant
boy CROWN up and somehow began tt
think l didn't want to raise my boy in thl
business / won't live long and when